1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of signal processing. More specifically, the: present invention relates to the processing of measured signals, containing a primary signal portion and a secondary signal portion, for the removal or derivation of either the primary or secondary signal portion when little is known about either of these components. The present invention is especially useful for physiological monitoring systems including blood oxygen saturation systems and pulserate measurement systems. The present invention further relates to a method and apparatus for signal processing of signals in order to compute an estimate for pulserate.
2. Description of the Related Art
Signal processors are typically employed to remove or derive either the primary or secondary, signal portion from a composite measured signal including a primary signal portion and a secondary signal portion. For example, a composite signal may contain a primary signal portion comprising desirable data and a secondary signal portion comprising noise. If the secondary signal portion occupies a different frequency spectrum than the primary signal portion, then conventional filtering techniques such as low pass, band pass, and high pass filtering are available to remove or derive either the primary or the secondary signal portion from the total signal. Fixed single or multiple notch filters could also be employed if at least one of the primary and secondary signal portions exists at a fixed frequency band.
It is often the case that an overlap in frequency spectrum between the primary and secondary signal portions exists. Complicating matters further, the statistical properties of one or both of the primary and secondary signal portions may change with time. In such cases, conventional filtering techniques are ineffective in extracting either the primary or secondary signal. If, however, a description of either the primary or secondary signal portion can be derived, correlation canceling, such as adaptive noise canceling, can be employed to remove either the primary or secondary signal portion of the signal isolating the other portion. In other words, given sufficient information about one of the signal portions, that signal portion can be extracted.
Conventional correlation cancelers, such as adaptive noise cancelers, dynamically change their transfer function to adapt to and remove portions of a composite signal. However, correlation cancelers and adaptive noise cancelers require either a secondary reference or a primary reference which correlates to either the secondary signal portion only or the primary signal portion only. For instance, for a measured signal containing noise and desirable signal, the noise can be removed with a correlation canceler if a noise reference is available. This is often the case. Although the amplitudes of the reference signals are not necessarily the same as the amplitudes of the corresponding primary or secondary signal portions, the reference signals have a frequency spectrum which is similar to that of the primary or secondary signal portions.
In many cases, nothing, or very little is known about the secondary and primary signal portions. One area where measured signals comprising a primary signal portion and a secondary signal portion about which no information can easily be determined is physiological monitoring. Physiological monitoring generally involves measured signals derived from a physiological system, such as the human body. Measurements which are typically taken with physiological monitoring systems include electrocardiographs, blood pressure, blood gas saturation (such as oxygen saturation), capnographs, other blood constituent monitoring, heart rate, respiration rate, electro-encephalograph (EEG) and depth of anesthesia, for example. Other types of measurements include those which measure the pressure and quantity of a substance within the body such as cardiac output, venous oxygen saturation, arterial oxygen saturation, bilirubin, total hemoglobin, breathalyzer testing, drug testing, cholesterol testing, glucose testing, and carbon dioxide testing, protein testing, carbon monoxide testing, and other in-vivo measurements, for example. Complications arising in these measurements are often due to motion of the patient, both external and internal (muscle movement, vessel movement, and probe movement, for example), during the measurement process.
Many types of physiological measurements can be made by using the known properties of energy attenuation as a selected form of energy passes through a test medium such as a finger, shown schematically in FIG. 1.
A blood gas monitor is one example of a physiological monitoring system which is based upon the measurement of energy attenuated by biological tissues or substances. Blood gas monitors transmit light into the test medium and measure the attenuation of the light as a function of time. The output signal of a blood gas monitor which is sensitive to the arterial blood flow contains a component having a waveform representative of the patient""s arterial pulse. This type of signal, which contains a component related to the patient""s pulse, is called a plethysmographic wave, and is shown in FIG. 2A as a curve s(t) 201. Plethysmographic waveforms are used in blood gas saturation measurements. As the heart beats, the amount of blood in the arteries increases and decreases, causing increases and decreases in energy attenuation, illustrated by a cyclic wave seen in the curve 201.
Typically, a digit such as a finger, an ear lobe, or other portion of the body where blood flows close to the skin, is employed as the medium through which light energy is transmitted for blood gas attenuation measurements. The finger comprises skin, fat, bone, muscle, etc., as shown FIG. 1, each of which attenuates energy incident on the finger in a generally predictable and constant manner. However, when fleshy portions of the finger are compressed erratically, for example by motion of the finger, energy attenuation becomes erratic.
An example of a more realistic measured waveform is shown in FIG. 2B, as a curve M(t) 202. The curve 202 illustrates the effect of motion and noise n(t) added to the clean waveform s(t) shown in FIG. 201. The primary plethysmographic waveform portion of the signal M(t) is the waveform representative of the pulse, corresponding to the sawtooth-like pattern wave in curve 201. The large, secondary motion-induced excursions in signal amplitude obscure the primary plethysmographic signal s(t). Even small variations in amplitude make it difficult to distinguish the primary signal component s(t) in the presence of a secondary signal component n(t).
A pulse oximeter is a type of blood gas monitor which non-invasively measures the arterial saturation of oxygen in the blood. The pumping of the heart forces freshly oxygenated blood into the arteries causing greater energy attenuation. As well understood in the art, the arterial saturation of oxygenated blood may be determined from the depth of the valleys relative to the peaks of two plethysmographic waveforms measured at separate wavelengths. Patient movement introduces motion artifacts to the composite signal as illustrated in the plethysmographic waveform illustrated in FIG. 2B. These motion artifacts distort the measured signal.
The present invention involves several different embodiments using the novel signal model in accordance with the present invention to estimate the desired signal portion of a measured data signal where the measured data contains desired and undesired components. In one embodiment, a signal processor acquires a first measured signal and a second measured signal. The first signal comprises a desired signal portion and an undesired signal portion. The second measured signal comprises a desired signal portion and an undesired signal portion. The signals may be acquired by propagating energy through a medium and measuring an attenuated signal after transmission or reflection. Alternatively, the signals may be acquired by measuring energy generated by the medium.
In one embodiment, the desired signal portions of the first and second measured signals are approximately equal to one another, to with a first constant multiplier. The undesired signal portions of the first and second measured signals are also approximately equal to one another, to within a second constant multiplier. A scrubber coefficient may be determined, such that an estimate for the first signal can be generated by inputting the first and second measured signals, and the scrubber coefficient into a waveform scrubber. The output of the waveform scrubber is generated by multiplying the first measured signal by the scrubber coefficient and then adding the result to the second measured signal.
In one embodiment, the scrubber coefficient is determined by normalizing the first and second measured signals, and then transforming the normalized signals into a spectral domain. The spectral domain signals are then divided by one another to produce a series of spectral ratio lines. The need for waveform scrubbing can be determined by comparing the largest ratio line to the smallest ratio line. If the difference does not exceed a threshold value, the no scrubbing is needed. If the difference does exceed a threshold value, then the waveform must be scrubbed, and the scrubbing coefficient corresponds to the magnitude of the largest ratio line.
Another aspect of the present invention involves a physiological monitor having a signal processor which computes an estimate for an unknown pulserate from the measured data. In one embodiment, the signal processor receives measured data from a detector that measures a physiological property related to the heartbeat. The signal processor transforms the data into a spectral domain and then identifies a series of spectral peaks and the frequencies associated with those peaks. The signal processor then applies a set of rules to the spectral peaks and the associated frequencies in order to compute an estimate for the pulserate.
In yet another embodiment of the pulserate detector, the signal processor performs a first transform to transform the measured data into a first transform space. The signal processor then performs a second transform to transform the data from the first transform space into a second transform space. The signal processor then searches the data in the second transform space to find the pulserate.
In another embodiment, the transform into the first transform space is a spectral transform such as a Fourier transform. In another embodiment, the transform into the second transform space is a spectral transform such as a Fourier transform. In yet another embodiment, once the data has been transformed into the second transform space, the signal processor performs a 1/x mapping on the spectral coordinates before searching for the pulserate.
In another embodiment, the signal processor transforms the measured data into a first spectral domain, and then transforms the data from the first spectral domain into a second spectral domain. After twice transforming the data, the signal processor performs a 1/x remapping on the coordinates of the second spectral domain. The signal processor then searches the remapped data for the largest spectral peak corresponding to a pulserate less than 120 beats per minute. If such a peak is found, then the signal processor outputs the frequency corresponding to that peak as being the pulserate. Otherwise, the signal processor searches the data transformed into the first spectral domain for the largest spectral peak in that domain, and outputs a pulserate corresponding to the frequency of the largest peak in the first spectral domain.
In another embodiment of the pulserate detector, the signal processor first transforms the measured data into a first spectral domain. Then the signal processor takes the magnitude of the transformed data and then transforms the magnitudes into a second spectral domain. Then the signal processor then performs a 1/x mapping of the spectral coordinates. After the 1/x mapping, the signal processor feeds the transformed and remapped data into a neural network. The output of the neural network is the pulserate.